That's not how you do business and this is not a reason for not operating in some country. They earn money in Brazil and they would just lose that revenue by skipping a large economy just because of some silly youtube video. Having a local office helps you receive payments and is a major deal breaker expecially when dealing with corporate customers.

If, during american elections, people posted videos saying Obama is a rapist and favors abortion I'm sure it would be removed.

Surely it's illegal to fire someone for refusing to break the law? Everyone's first duty is to the law, not his employer.

Probably true in most countries, but not being familiar with Brazil's labor laws I wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to what would happen to this guy. In the US, if they wanted to get rid of the guy, they'd come up with a paper reason that wasn't necessarily the *real* reason for the firing.

Hell, the US will arrest foreign nationals [wikipedia.org] in foreign countries who have no presence in the US whatsoever. Not to mention the assassinations [nytimes.com] of US citizens without any due process. There are vanishingly few circumstances where the US government can claim any sort of moral high ground.

How do you know they are lies? And as far as I can see, the accuser does identify himself (unless he's using a fake full name as his YouTube username). I'm also Brazilian and I understand the need for this kind of law, but under Brazil's electoral law, it should be the accuser who is prosecuted, not the owner of the platform he's using to make the accusation.

Brazil has a recurring problem with this - not sure how much it's the judges' fault or the prosecutors' fault, probably taking advantage of the fact that judges know nothing about how the internet works. Hopefully, our Internet Bill will be passed in Congress soon and end these bullshit interpretations of the law...

(Definitely agree with you on record companies though - Google is always quick to comply with theirs and Hollywood's take down orders.)

(Oh, and I'm not an Anonymous Coward, I just can't find where to identify myself!:P)

If the US government passes a law that sets price caps, then Gasprom would have to either obey them, or leave the US. What is so strange about that.

And I don't see any kind of a conflict with the statement about Internet not being under the control of any one government. If a government wants to control the Internet inside it's own borders it can certainly try.

If the US did this, you would be championing the company and condemning the US for trying to extend itslaws to other countries.

You may be content to allow Brazil or perhaps Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the right to dictate to the world what information might be shown, but nobody else is.

Jump to conclusions much? Try focusing on what I say instead of what you imagine I might mean.

The location means that the Brazilian Government can't physically storm the data center and do what they want with it. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the Google Exec from Brazil has authority to block a video. That is entirely a matter internal to Google. I don't claim to know what Google's rules on the matter are, but if they gave him the OK to block videos, then he can do it regardless of where the servers are.